Just me talking about life on this 80 acre hilltop on a dead end dirt road. I bake bread, grow veggies, milk goats,raise rabbits, laugh a lot and collect & repair old sewing machines. I LOVE old stuff. I think James Whitcomb Riley is fabulous, Ralph Moody was cool and Tasha Tudor was fascinating. I like old people. I make and sell primitives on Ebay and Etsy.
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Monday, August 26, 2013

Sauerkraut, re-usable canning lids and Flea Market Finds!

Just over 3 weeks have passed and in the mild temperatures my sauerkraut has finished fermenting and is ready to can!

We just follow the Ball Blue Book for canning and get 'er done.

Heat, stuff in jars, brine to within 1/2" of the top and on go the new
Tattler lids we're trying this year and into the water bath canner!

Homemade sauerkraut is a totally different animal than store-bought! Homemade is milder, store-bought tends to be harsh.

We like to put a couple quarts in the crockpot with a few links of kielbasa, add water and simmer! At serving time, we always ladle ours over mashed potatoes.......oh YUM! Guess what we're having for dinner tonight????

You use these a little differently, but not much. You don't tighten them on until AFTER canning, then you immediately tighten, but they're working well so far and I LOVE the fact that you just save and re-use them!!!

Did green beans, too. We only planted bush beans this year, but they've done quite well even with our sporadic watering.

We ended up with 47 quarts of sauerkraut! The 'rules' are that you don't keep jars of canning for more than a year or so.....but in my cellar these will be dark & cool and we'll have sauerkraut for 2 or 3 years before we need to can it again.

I finally finished a few of the primitives I started while at the Fair.....

Then on Saturday we went off to a Threshing Bee & Flea Market and I found some cool stuff. (Does anyone else still say 'cool'?) I had to really talk the old guys out of these Jones Sewing Machine parts that they INSISTED went with either the old Singer or White sewing machines they had for sale, but in the end I prevailed!!! Actually I think they finally agreed just to get rid of me!

My last find was this child-sized steamer trunk! I think it's going to be home to fabric scraps or stash. Got it for a steal (no, I didn't steal it....) and my beloved husband offered to carry it about a million miles out to the truck so I could keep 'shopping'! Gotta love that guy, he puts up with a lot ;-)

Today we're off for another cancer treatment for Mom this afternoon, and doing a bit of construction work on the place this morning. Oh yeah, and I have to can a load of salmon that the afore-mentioned husband extracted from a river. Much to do, off I go!

3 comments:

Goodness gracious! You work harder than any five people I know put together.

People still say "cool" but write it as "kewl" nowadays.

I have decided that if and when the big bombs drop or the electro-magnetic grid is completely destroyed or some other mega-disaster occurs that renders the rest of us helpless, I am going to wend my way somehow to your cellar so that I can survive for 2 or 3 years on homemade sauerkraut and green beans whilst fellowshipping with you and your family. I cannot do much work, but if you sell some of your sewing machines and buy a piano, I can provide background music for all of your activities. Mrs. RWP can attest to that, as I have played piano while she hung curtain rods, painted walls, put up wallpaper, and so forth. We have had this symbiotic relationship going on now for 50 years, and somehow it works. Or, more accurately, she works.

I fear I have said too much. It must be the non-decaffeinated hot green tea I drank this morning.

Oh, I wish I was going to have more kraut than I fear I'm ending up with.Mine might be ready.....I'll check tonight or tomorrow.I want to be there when the RWP's arrive to eat your food storage and listen to beautiful piano!Many prayers for your Mom and you.

About Me

Introvert, conservative lover of antiquities & thinking, I love the Lord Jesus and strive to serve Him with all that I am. I love the woods, the farm, this life. I create because I must, I think because I cannot stop. I collect ancient sewing machines because they call to me.